EFPIA looks to Lilly for head of comms

Pharma trade body hires Liam English

Liam English is to leave his role as a regional communications director at Lilly to join trade body the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).

He takes up the post of communications director on May 12, leading efforts to develop EFPIA's comms strategy and oversee its reputation management.

The move comes as the trade body looks to emerge from a challenging couple of years of representing the industry amid increasing calls for transparency in both trial data and physician payments.

The task at hand is an appetising one for English, however, who said this was “such an exciting time to be joining the team at EFPIA”.

He also gave some insight into his main ambitions for EFPIA's communications strategy.

“The pharmaceutical industry is built on a common core purpose to make life better for individuals and communities,” he said “but this fact is sometimes overlooked or tangled in the complexities of political and policy debates.”

English has experience in building pharma reputation, serving as associative communications director for Lilly across its business in Australia, Canada and Europe.

In this role, he helped to establish the company's blog LillyPadEu, which was the first blog from a pharma company to focus on EU policy.

His communications roles prior to joining Lilly mainly focused on public affairs and policy and includes serving as deputy director of communications and head of medial relations at the office of government commerce in the UK following a period as communications manager at the BBC.

EFPIA's director general Richard Bergstrom noted the importance of English's role for the Association over the next few years.

“This year will see big changes at an EU institutional level,” he said. “We will also see further progress on industry transparency commitments, and further negotiations towards better deals for transatlantic trade and investment, all of which can lead to better outcomes for patients.

”Continued clarity of voice of our members' role and contribution in combatting financial and social burdens of ill-health will be key throughout this era of change."